The Department of Business Policy at NUS Business School will host its inaugural annual Strategy Research Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, August 26-27, 2009.

The Conference will focus on the theme of corporate governance and institution. While it would be unsurprising to suggest that governance varies across institutional contexts, understanding how and why institutions emerge, involve and change and their impact on business enterprises are less self-evident.

The rapidly evolving world of global business provides significant opportunities to do cross-national research in this arena. The economies of Asia are all historically characterized to a significant extent by a network form of capitalism. Yet, the development (and evolution) of institutions has proceeded significantly and rapidly in several of these nations.

This serendipitous co-emergence of both theoretical and practical significance suggests that the time may be right for the next push in research on the interface between governance and institutions. General topics of our interest include:

• Role of intellectual property rights, political rights, and civil liberties in innovation and economic growth;
• Impact of corporate legal and regulatory framework on firm behavior and performance;
• Role of business groups in emerging market countries;
• Impact of institutions in individual countries-in addressing a common environmental shock, e.g., global financial crisis;
• Evolution of institutions with interactions among individual actors and governments.